What are you doing with your Four year old?

[Senorita Tuna Fish]

We are using OPGTR and started with Kumon Tracing books. We do rightstart math level a when we can get to it. I really would like to do more with her! Give me some ideas. i know that when we start science history, music and art she will tag along but she wants more. Oh we also do a morning board that includes months, days of the week, reading the calender, counting the days in school ect, but she still wants more. I also need things she can do on her own while I work with her sister! What do you do with your four year old?:bigear:

[LittleIzumi]

MEP Reception, Lollipop Logic, Signing Time (that one's "independent"), ETC (finished Primers, doing 1 now) and that is independent, but I think that is because of her personality--she can do it HERSELF, thank you mommy!!!!! :lol: HWoT! Also, playing with Cuisinaire rods and other math manipulatives is independent.

[rocketgirl]

My 3 1/2 year old really likes our new calendar (from dollar tree) & wants to do more with that. I'm thinking it'll help her recognize numbers. She likes sesame street.com and has an older sibling sit with her for help. She does bible story & apologia science with us (zoology 3). Then goes off to "do her thing" (play, etc). I'm starting handwriting without tears with her and she does vocabulary with my 1st grader (wordly wise) although I don't like the 1st grade version but we'll just deal with it til next year. She loves "workbooks": we're working on a Kumon maze book and a random shape book that I also got from dollar tree. Other things that seem to be working so far are when her older sibling reads to her a book that she picked out from the library, and doing some Math U See with her 1st grader sister (Primer). She also enjoys "journaling" like her sisters. She feels very excited about school by having the same supplies as her sisters altho she can only sit with us for just so long. Having been a former ps kindergarten teacher, i'm thinking about starting "letter of the week" for her, but may instead make a "board" that has letter of the week, shape of the week, word of the week, story of the week, etc - but just kind of busy with my bigger kids just yet to figure that out... :) Best of luck!

[Whereneverever]

OPG, Saxon math K, sloooooowly Cursive First, and she listens in on what her sister is doing.

 

 

When she wants to.

 

 

And play.

[Dawn E]

We are doing the Rod & Staff preschool workbooks and Literature Pockets Nursery Rhymes along with some of the book suggestions, themes and activities from MFW K. He knows his letters and letter sounds, but he isn't ready for blending. We are working with making words using alphabet magnets until he's ready to move on in phonics.

[momma2three]

Mine is in my sig, but for independent work she loves handwriting, so I can usually keep her busy by printing out some handwriting sheets. I got a lot of really great math and craft books at that Scholastic $1 sale.

[AngelBee]

Using LHFH and LHFHG from http://www.heartofdakota.com

 

Also http://www.more.starfall.com

[hollywoodstar09]

My other ds watches and when it makes sense, I copy off extra worksheets for him. I've been exploring and have long since desired a pre-k program for him. My ds is 3 going on 4, so I hope its ok to post a reply to this.

[Love My Life x4]

My McKenzee Grace is 3 and *loves* her school time :) She watches her older siblings all having lots of fun while doing their school work so it only makes sense that she would want in on the fun!

 

She can recogize all capital/small letters and knows the sound each letter makes. However, she is not ready to begin blending at this point. We are doing our own version of letter of the week. Each week we concentrate on a new letter.... review name/sound and try to hear beginning/ending sounds. We are using Evan Moor alphabet puppets and she LOVES them!!! I also print additional worksheets off from various websites for additional review. We play letter games, do a letter craft, have a letter of the week poem, color and read book, etc....!

 

For math I am not using a curriculum... she is learning enough through play. We concentrate on number recognition (currently through 20), counting (through 50), playing with different items and being able to count out the correct amount, greater/less than, she loves pattern blocks, frogs, etc...! I have a list of goals and we just work towards those. I do occasionally print out a worksheet... circle the correct number, color this number....

 

Currently instead of handwriting she is just working on those fine motor skills. She is working through a pre handwriting book.... draw this line, this curve, etc...! She also loves the *I can* series.... for pasting, gluing, cutting, etc....!

 

Each week she has a new theme.... I keep this simple. We read books, do a craft, sing some songs, motor skill activities, play a game, math activity..... anything to make it fun for her and easy for me to put together. The themes are always science/history related.

 

Besides that it is LOTS of reading to her! My other kids are 8, 7 and 5.... they each read at least 1 book to her each day. She also loves playdoh, putting together puzzles, building with blocks, using stamps, stringing beads..... all that type of stuff can keep her busy for hours. We are also using some of the evan moor lit pockets.... she LOVES those!

Edited September 17, 2011 by Home Grown Hearts

[sagira]

Dd4 is in a great Montessori program three hours a day - free. After much consideration, I enrolled her. Nice opportunity at a private school that would have been too expensive for us to afford.

[Soror]

So, far- she practices writing a lot, just on her own. I'm doing my own letter of the week with her and we have a nature/science theme each week. We read books about it and try to coordinate Nature Study to that theme. We have baking once a week, Music/Art Appreciation and Music as well. She paints,draws and colors when she wants- I have some Kumon books she can do also when it strikes her. She joins in with SoTW and Science as she wants to, mostly she likes the projects and coloring pages from SoTW. It is very, very low key- I have a few small goals for us to make but I think those will be met pretty easily along the way and with her mostly 'playing.'

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

We are doing ETC 3.5, Webster's Speller, and Miquon. We also do a lot of chapter books that I read to him, right now we are reading Stuart Little. He is definitely NOT ready for handwriting, lots of fine motor development needed!

[Joyofsixreboot]

My just turned 4yo (Aug 30) has very little desire to sit still. I'm letting her go to church pre-school which is all about pretend play, stories, puzzles and painting. We read the stories from Weefolks Pre-school. She's learning her letters. With only that though she correctly told me about the solar system the other day:001_huh: so I'm going to continue to put off formal stuff and let her do the sponge thing. She isn't slated to start K here until 2013 so I'm not going to push her.

[boscopup]

I mostly tell my 4 year old to GO PLAY! :D But if he asks to do school, we'll pull out Singapore Essential Math K, Explode the Code 1, Webster's Speller, or one of the Rod & Staff preschool workbooks (Rainbow Resource carries them, btw). I also try to do a read-aloud story time with just him if I can. He's the middle child and wants some Mommy time. We're going to get MFW K for him soon, as he asked to "start Kindergarten" when he turns 5 (in November), and I think he's more than ready for that. It will give me some crafty stuff to do with him, rather than just workbooks.

 

FIAR would be something you could look into as well.

 

I try to do stuff with my 4 year old first, then he is sent off to play while I work with the oldest. I'm not finding him something to do the entire time we're working. He has enough toys and books to figure something out. ;)

[ladydusk]

My 4 year old is doing phonics (OPG), math (MEP Reception - loves and begs for), and occasional Cursive First (she started trying to write on her own, so I correct letters and try to teach the proper way).

 

She sits with us for all our Circle Time and has her own memory work. She listens to all our read alouds. She participates in Art, History, and Science at an appropriate level.

[momma2three]

Oh yeah, and I really like the "What Your Preschooler Needs to Know," particularly for their science and history sections. The science section is very short, but basically every few paragraphs makes a great longer unit, supplemented with various library books and experiments and movies that we get at the library or watch on Discovery Streaming.

[Prose]

My son is 4 and 1/2, and he begged to do more school last year. So this year we got him ETC primer, Get set for school (HWOT), singapore math essentials, and a kumon cutting book. He also loves sitting in for SOTW and FIAR.

[Dawn E]

Dd4 is in a great Montessori program three hours a day - free. After much consideration, I enrolled her. Nice opportunity at a private school that would have been too expensive for us to afford.

 

What a great opportunity! Dh was in grad school when dd was that age, and she got to attend the Montessori preschool I worked at. It was a wonderful experience for her. I would love a 3 hr Montessori school for ds, but there isn't one around us.

[Parker Martin]

I recently discovered that my four year old loves doing sheets from Critical Thinking Activities Grades K-3 and partial pages from Math Mammoth. I cut the Math Mammoth pages into parts to keep them very short. The pages from the other book are already short.

 

After reading the horror stories of handwriting remediation on this board, I started having him do one page from Getty-Dubay A each day. At first, he was not a big fan of this, but it takes less than five minutes, and now he kind of likes it.

 

We do a lesson from FLL1 about every other day, which he likes, and he reads aloud one lesson from the McGuffey First Reader each day, which he loves.

 

Everything above takes about twenty minutes total.

 

We do read alouds all the time. Sometimes we'll take turns reading pages. We collect books from the Sonlight, Ambleside, FIAR, and Peak with Books lists. Every night before bed we read a Bible story together. He loves A Child's Book of Character Building.

 

Outside of the house, we do a Kindermusik Family Time class and a homeschool P.E. class. He does both of those with his little brother. He also goes to a play-based preschool two mornings a week.

 

His day largely consists of playing with his brother. They play pretend, cars, duplos, trains, blocks, animals, and whatever else. They love to play marble track and GeoPuzzles, but those have to be supervised closely to makes sure that our two year old doesn't decide to eat a marble for a tiny puzzle piece. We also do a lot of free art. I am not crafty, so we do not usually get in to directed crafts beyond, "Here's a folded piece of cardstock. Can you make a birthday card for Grandma?" We play outside, either at a park or in the backyard, everyday.

 

We don't use formal science or foreign language programs. He gets a lot of science exposure from books, conversation, hikes, and science exhibits. Next year we'll start BFSU. Our kids don't get to watch any television apart from the DVDs we own, so they get foreign language exposure from Hola Amigos, Bonjour les Amis, and Journeys to the East: The River Dragon King. He picked up enough Spanish through Hola Amigos to have simple conversations with a friend of mine who is fluent. He especially likes French, so he asks me a lot of questions about it, and we look up the answers together.

[swellmomma]

We do Jolly Phonics, HWOT, Mathematical Reasoning Book 1(it's designed for 3/4 year olds), SL P3/4 and themed topics using ideas and lapbooks from 1+1+1=1 and homeschool creations, as well as just putting themes together myself for her. She has independant activities to use when I am busy with the others and a sensory bin to utilize as well. I also have the Artistic Pursuits preK book, the set from R&S and some from Kumon but we haven't started them yet.

[Mommy22alyns]

Sylvia did HOP K and Brain Quest K workbooks, some dry erase letter/number books, Kumon cut/paste books... she also read, played independently, and joined in SOTW 1 activities with Rebecca. She also did some computer games, Starfall, Jump Start, etc.

[NancyNellen]

Phonics Pathways

Leading Little Ones to God

ETC Primers

[ChristusG]

We're doing Explode the Code (she's on book B) and some number recognition worksheets.

 

With both kids I'm going Positive Action Bible, First Language Lessons Level 1 (DD4 totally gets it), Abeka Health, and we'll start Apologia Science next week (not sure if DD4 will get it or not....hopefully so).

[Dustybug]

My 3 year old(will be 4 in Dec.) just finished up LHTH from HOD. When we start our new school year in about another week, he'll be using Teach Me Joy's Animal Play, Abeka k4 phonics, a ton of preschool packs from the Homeschool Creations website and sitting in on whatever he wants to while I'm teaching my DD.

[jeffcolemanfamily]

My 4 year old is my youngest of 6.

 

My husband made a bookshelf for our whole family with six individual shelves, one for each child and a large shelf on top for me. :)

 

My son gets his own shelf with a ton of books I have picked out for him to look through/read. He has a bunch of puzzles on the shelf, a prek workbook, a pencil box with a ton of markers and crayons. He has a whiteboard and markers to work on whenever he wants, and he has a Mighy Minds magnetic box of shapes to play with. He has a markerboard people whiteboard with a map of the world on one side and markers so he can trace the world. He follows along with us every morning in our memory work and whenever the older kids are coloring, writing, etc, he is right there working on something from his shelf! :) He does All About Reading Pre-level lessons with me daily which are really a fun, natural way to introduce him to language and he loves Ziggy the Zebra! :)

[LoveBaby]

My 4yo is doing All About Reading Pre-Level 1, morning board/calendar activites and MFW Preschool toys/activities. We read a ton, too. She'll start "formal" academics and practice handwriting etc. later next spring.

[Violet Crown]

Miquon, KTM, a couple of old readers, 1960's Highlights magazines, HWT, Kumon cut/ paste/ make an unholy mess workbooks, preschool choir, Faith & Life 1, cuddle reading, swordfights, tea parties, running amok, shrieking.

Edited September 18, 2011 by Sharon in Austin

[chepyl]

Lilly is 3.5 years old. We do Brightly Beaming letter of the week preparatory curriculum. She colors the letter, number, shape, and them for the week. We practice counting to the number and then I send her to find that many ponies, legos, or blocks. I also have a letter recognition worksheet we do each Friday and we are making a letter lapbook. I found some free template pieces, then I print clip art pictures to glue to them. She loves that part of the week. We go through all of the letters amd numbers a few times each week.

 

I also have some preschool thinking skills books and flashcards. She loves to circle what is different! In Feb, when she turns 4, we will try 100 EL. If she is not ready we will wait; but she really wants to read like bubby :D

[LittleIzumi]

 

Also www.more.starfall.com

 

Oh, dd loves this too. We also watch Signing Time, movies in Spanish, and she goes to play preschool 4 hours a week where she does lots of crafts, hunts for bugs, is read to a lot, etc.

[RoundAbout]

We are mostly doing OPGTR and RightStart A with a little Miquon thrown in. Also a healthy bit of fine motor practice, but not necessarily writing. Guess its paying off because he was the star of preschool craft time at the library this week when he was the only kid there to be able to do a yarn weaving project without help. I have him practice writing his name a few times a week just so the grandparents think he's on track :rolleyes:

 

We use workboxes so I thrown in various fun activities: stickers, Tell Me a Story cards, MiniLuk, puzzles, games, etc.

 

We hike with a local nature group once a week and are training for a 25 mile bike ride together (he on the attachment bike). My husband has also started him on some rock climbing. We go camping a lot and just started up swim lessons again. He will be back in ski school for 3 weeks this year too.

 

We visit the zoo, library, museums, gardens, festivals, and anything else we can find. I love having a 4 year-old, this year is so much fun!

[mhaddon]

Ds does morning routine with us, his own journal dictation hhe has the rod and staff workbooks. Helps sister with letter of week activities and sometimes rs a. We are pretty laid back i also get out cusinaire rods, patteern pzges, puzzles, Nd logic games. I print off pages and he does science and tog with us usually. We read sl p4/5 books together. Never aything set

[craftyerin]

My 4yo is very, very wiggly and not interested in much formal work. We are reading through the SL P3/4 read alouds, doing occasional work in Kumon workbooks, and I'm planning to start HWoT pre-k and AAR pre-level in the spring.

[jennynd]

My not quite 4 is doing HOP orange + Dolch sight worlds , We also use SM early bird K, play C-rods with no specific instruction. Count/add/sub with right start abacus (not using any workbook or instruction)

[RootAnn]

My 4yo is very, very wiggly and not interested in much formal work.

 

:iagree: I let mine play.

 

I read to him (no formal booklist, just whatever he brings to me). He does workbooks (tracing, coloring, puzzles) when he wants to do seatwork (maybe twice a day for 3-5 minutes each time).

 

I'm going to be switching the Shirley's Prepackaged Crafts that we get over to him in January (from the five-year-old who is doing them now).

 

He's not academic at all and is still struggling to learn his colors. We play UNO for numbers & colors.

[DragonflyAcademy]

My 4 1/2 year old is working through AAS prelevel 1.. he knows most of his letter sounds as we did a Letter of the Week last year.. He is also doing mazes, cutting activities, fine motor things (lacing etc), some pre writing activities and crafts. I don't force him to sit for school.. but offer things for him to do and he can choose to do them or go play quietly while the other children do school

[Rosie_0801]

This semester we've been doing letter of the week type stuff, plus the usual little bits of Auslan, jigsaw puzzles, playing with c-rods, colouring in, documentaries and other bibs and bobs from the toy library. We do some art activities, which she likes well enough, but she's not an enthusiast. Next year her little brother will start totschooling and he's big on mess so I hope he'll inspire her ("he's littler than me so he shouldn't have anything I don't have!")

 

Weirdly, we spend about an hour a day on "school" and she still wants more, the little workaholic. :glare: So this morning I printed out the first few lessons of MEP Reception and we'll start that this week. She's tracing letters with her finger, but not in the right way for letter formation so I'll be buying the Spencerian kit as soon as I have the dosh together. She also did something the other day that has me wondering if she understands blending, :001_huh: so now we have our new printer, I'm going to print out a British Speller like Websters and think about how to implement it. It seems odd for a kiddo who still can't speak in proper sentences, but whatever tickles her fancy!

 

We're doing another year of PreK next year (we run Jan-Dec and dd turns 5 in April) but it seems we'll be a bit more K-ish than I expected.

 

Rosie